Paul Murphy: One of the important aspects of the past couple of weeks has been the way in which the British and Irish Governments have reacted in exactly the same manner to the bank robbery. This week I met Dermot Ahern, the Irish Foreign Minister, and there will a formal meeting of the British and Irish Governments in Dublin in just under a fortnight to determine where we are. It is important that both Governments take the same view on criminality, as we do, and especially on how the raid on the bank has had grave consequences for the political and peace processes in Northern Ireland.

Andrew Turner: A moment ago, the State of State mentioned the possibility of having an Assembly without an Executive. Is he willing for his Ministers to be accountable to that Assembly?

David Borrow: I am sure that as the years unfold we will see whether it is a fictitious or a real black hole. During every year that I have been in the House, I seem to remember hearing Opposition Members talk of doom and gloom, saying that there would be a recession, that there would not be the expected tax revenues, that expenditure would be higher than expected and that the Chancellor would be unable to balance his books. Every year those critics have been dumbfounded by the fact that the Chancellor has been right and they have been wrong. If the Chancellor continues what he has been doing over the last few years, I have no reason to believe that he will not be able to deliver the public sector investments and improvements that I want to see, as well as ensuring that the books balance over the economic cycle.
	I want to say a little about why some of the investment that the Opposition parties want to get rid of is, in fact, crucial. That applies in particular to the new deal. Members may ask why the new deal is important to a constituency like South Ribble, which has full employment. Two or three years ago, Tesco built a new store in Leyland and we were able to persuade it to become part of a new deal partnership. It recruited many of its employees from the long-term unemployed register. Using new deal money, it put them through a detailed programme to prepare them for work. People who had not worked for many years, and in some cases had not worked at all, eventually found secure, stable jobs with Tesco. Without the new deal, that would not have happened.
	Employers often say to me—given that my constituency has full employment—that there are people out there without jobs, but they do not have the skills and the confidence to obtain work. Hundreds of workers in my constituency have been brought in from overseas—from eastern Europe and South Africa, for instance—and are doing excellent work, particularly in horticulture. However, I know that there are probably similar numbers in my constituency who, if we as a society were prepared to invest in them and give them confidence, skills and the work ethic, could be doing those jobs and making a productive input.
	That will not be cheap. In the years ahead, the new deal programme may have to be altered to meet the needs of the future. I have no doubt, however, that if we want to make a difference to society, securing employment for people who, in many ways, are seen as being unemployable will be crucial. Breaking the cycle for people who have never worked and whose parents often do not work is one of the real challenges facing us. We have low unemployment and ours is a prosperous society, but a sizeable chunk of the population is not part of the work force and could be brought into it. Simply saying, "Here is a job, go and get it, go for an interview" will not bring them in—what is needed is investment by the community in those individuals. Working with employers and the wider community, we must give them the skills, talents, experience and confidence that are so important to getting them into work. That will have a knock-on effect on crime, disorder and all the other things about which concern is often expressed. Making people part of mainstream society is one of our key tasks.
	My patch is one of the lucky, relatively privileged parts of the country—a nice area with nice houses, nice schools and very low unemployment. Even there, however, there are people who should be given the opportunity to work, having not worked for many years if they have even worked at all. That is a key part of the programme, and I think the two Opposition parties are wrong to want to get rid of that programme.
	I want to make some criticisms of the Liberal Democrats' proposals, particularly their proposal to abolish the Department of Trade and Industry. I was in Toulouse yesterday to see the unveiling of the Airbus. The Prime Minister said that once the A380 was under way, in full production, there would probably be about 100,000 jobs in the UK linked to and dependent on it. Many smaller companies will be involved as well as the two main companies, Rolls-Royce and Airbus Industrie.
	In proposing to abolish the DTI, the Liberal Democrats fail to recognise its importance to projects such as the Airbus. On several occasions during the eight years for which I have been in the House, I have lobbied both the DTI and the Chancellor for launch aid for the Airbus, which has been crucial to the UK's status as a major partner in the project. The idea that we can simply abolish the DTI puts our aerospace industry at risk. Moreover, the DTI provides export credit guarantees, which are crucial to the aerospace industry that employs thousands of people in my constituency in military aircraft production. Without the guarantees, exports of military aircraft from Wharton and Samlesbury in Lancashire would not be possible.
	While I am having a little go at the Liberal Democrats, let me point out that I shall take great care to ensure that my constituents who work to produce the Eurofighter in Wharton and Samlesbury know that if there were a Liberal Democrat Government, one of their first acts would be to tear up the contract that was signed by the Secretary of State for Defence for the second tranche of the Eurofighter. That, too, would put thousands of people in Lancashire out of work—work on something that people like me have supported for many years.
	It will be interesting to see whether the Liberal Democrat candidates in Lancashire include n their election manifestoes, in a prominent position, their proposal to sack thousands of military aircraft workers in the county, or whether they will ensure that the proposal is seen only in parts of the country where military aircraft production is not an issue. The Liberal Democrats are very good at saying different things to different people, and because they are the third party their programme will never be properly scrutinised by the media. When their leader is interviewed, interviewers do not ask him for details of his party's spending and taxation programme because they know, as I do, that the Liberal Democrats will not form the next Government.

Ben Bradshaw: No, I am terribly sorry, but I have only 10 minutes in which to wind up, and the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) did not take interventions either.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wantage and the hon. Members for Taunton (Mr. Flook), for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) and for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) raised the serious issue of bovine TB, on which I do not intend to spend a great deal of time, but it is important to say that this has been our first opportunity to discuss the issue following the publication, finally, of the results from the four area trials in the Irish Republic. We will of course take seriously any lessons to be learned from those trials, but it is important that hon. Members recognise that the situation in Ireland is rather different from that in the United Kingdom.
	The scientists who conducted the Irish trials have said that the proactive culling that achieved the reduction in TB breakdowns in cattle is not a viable policy for the Republic of Ireland, so whether it would be viable in the UK is also open to question. I have asked the Independent Science Group to examine the results of the Irish trials to see whether anything can be learned from them. I accept that those trials have changed the debate. They have taken us away from the debate on whether culling badgers can help to tackle TB. We must now ask whether culling badgers in the way that was done in the Irish trials would be viable, cost effective and politically acceptable. Those are questions that all parties in the House will have to grapple with over the next few weeks.
	Several hon. Members talked about the general state of farming, and it is important to recognise that it has gone through a difficult time for a number of reasons, although incomes have, in fact, risen by 80 per cent. from the low that they reached in 2000. We recognise that there are particular pressures on the dairy industry. Those problems were raised by the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), and my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) talked about them in some detail. My hon. Friend quoted an article from this week's farming press, saying that he felt that there was a new spirit of optimism in the industry. I think that he is right, although we should not overlook some of the serious challenges faced, especially by the dairy industry.
	The hon. Member for St. Ives pointed out that we are awaiting the outcome of the latest Office of Fair Trading report into supermarkets. We will study that report with interest. The Government have certainly not ruled out the need for further action if the report shows that there are problems that need to be addressed, although previous reports of this kind have not done so. In fairness to the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), I should mention that he pointed out the positive role that supermarkets play in rural areas. They provide a service to rural people and offer them a much greater choice than previous generations ever had. I am as keen as he is, however, to make sure that they do not use their powerful position to the detriment of the farming industry.
	One of the important statistics to remember when we debate the state of the dairy industry is the extremely big difference in profitability between some dairy producers and others. My constituency is urban, not rural, but I know farmers outside Exeter, and have friends who are farmers outside Exeter, and they tell me that there are huge differentials in the success of dairy farmers, both in terms of added value and costs. The differential that dairy farmers experience is 12p per litre, which does not indicate to me that this is just a problem of supermarkets and price. It is also a challenge to the industry to get to the level at which all are making those sorts of profits.
	Several hon. Members talked about CAP reform. It is right to point out, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), that although there was a lot of talk in the Conservative party, over many years, about the importance of CAP reform, this Labour Government delivered that historic CAP reform back in the summer of 2003. It has been an incredibly complex issue, but we have discussed it with the farming community all along. One of my other hon. Friends pointed out that the farming industry was not united on how it wanted CAP reform to be implemented, but we have gone out of our way, all along, to take the farming industry with us, to listen to those voices and to try to devise a system that we thought was fair and that would deliver the public goods that were mentioned.
	It was characteristically generous of the hon. Member for St. Ives to say that he thought that we had struck the right balance. His questions about the timing of the implementation of the single farm payment have been dealt with. We are confident that we can still do that early in the window that we have set out. I also note that, as was pointed out, in all the criticisms from the official Opposition on the single payment and the way in which it has been implemented, I did not hear a coherent alternative, and I never have done. We have heard such criticisms time and again in the House, but we are still waiting for a coherent alternative.
	A number of other issues were raised, to which I have not got time to respond in detail now, but I will write to the Members concerned. The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) mentioned bees, and the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire referred to reform of the sugar regime and the important area of biomass and the future of biofuels, to which the Government are committed.
	In general terms, however, I was astonished that in a debate that was supposed to be about rural communities, the hon. Members for South-East Cambridgeshire and for North Wiltshire said almost nothing about employment, the environment, biodiversity, the health service, crime, schools, housing, poverty, transport or the overall economy. Are not those issues important for people who live in rural areas, as they are for people who live in urban areas? My region, the south-west, is largely rural, and has been perhaps disproportionately dependent on agriculture historically. It has also been the fastest growing region in the whole of England in the last three years. Nothing was said about the success delivered by this Labour Government to the economy and public services in rural areas.
	In the constituency of the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, there are now 2,365 more nurses, and 849 more doctors, in his strategic health authority area. North Wiltshire has 290 more teachers than in 1997, and Wiltshire has 63 more police officers. Unemployment has fallen 63 per cent. since 1997. None of that was mentioned in the criticisms that he levelled.
	That comes on top of announcements this week in the Conservative party's so-called James review, the Conservative Front-Bench's failure to stand up to their party leader and shadow Chancellor, unlike some other shadow Ministers, and to defend the savage cuts that the Conservative party now proposes to make in DEFRA's budget—

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
	The House divided: Ayes 308, Noes 182.

Liam Byrne: I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), for attending this debate on the sale of school playing fields, and I welcome him to his place. This is his first Adjournment debate, as it is mine, and I have no doubt that his many years of service to the people of Halton, as well as his former career at the then Department for Education and Employment, will stand him in excellent stead for his new role, and I wish him every possible success in that job.
	I am grateful to the House for the opportunity to speak on the six-months anniversary of my arrival in the House. We have achieved a great deal in Hodge Hill in that short time. We have quadrupled the number of actions taken against antisocial behaviour. We have won two extra teams of police. We are now one of just 50 Home Office action areas for the Together campaign. Most important of all, we have created a new partnership within our community in Hodge Hill that has already identified five possible crack houses, 10 gang hot spots and 30 neighbours from hell. However, I fear that, after all our work, certain forces are about to move us backwards on an issue that lies at the heart of our community: the sale of the Brockhurst road playing fields to Tesco, thus creating one more megastore for that organisation and involving the possible highway robbery of up to 80 per cent. of the cash to spend elsewhere in the city.
	I must give credit where credit is due: the Government have transformed horizons for our young people in this country. The Government have tightened the rules on the sale of school playing fields not once, not twice, but four times. That agenda is matched by the new vision of offering children at least four hours' sport every week in and out of school. Moreover, that vision has been backed by cash: more than £1 billion is flooding into physical education and school sport between now and 2006. However, I can only wish that the Government's commitment was matched by that of Birmingham city council, and I need to give the House a very brief history of the development of the dangerous scheme to tarmac over the green fields on the Brockhurst road.
	The development was first proposed some 12 years ago, but the local action plan for Hodge Hill was clear that only one large food store should be built. It said that there should not be a megastore, that nothing should be built on playing fields and that such fields should not be declared surplus to requirements. Indeed, the plan set out clearly:
	"Any future applications that incorporate part or all of the playing fields in development proposals are likely to be refused".
	That was the position until last year, when after 12 years of the community successfully resisting change, the new Tory-Liberal administration gave the green light for a new local development plan that provided for a 55,000 sq ft megastore that swallowed up nearly a fifth of the playing fields. It backed that up with a cabinet commitment to declare the fields surplus to requirement after the simple presentation of a satisfactory plan from Tesco. Did the new cabinet ask the local residents action group for its advice? Did it call local councillors to ask their views? Did it talk to one local resident? Not a bit of it. It even refused to table the report from the residents action group at the meeting at which the deed was done.
	I do not want to overstate the case, but I do not need to. The fields in question are technically detached educational playing fields. Following decades of underinvestment, local schools have been reluctant to use them due to the lack of changing facilities on site. Additionally, the proposal will not swallow all the pitches. However, the pitches are rough diamonds because they are of fantastic quality. They are dead flat, never waterlogged and so good that the Aston Villa ladies team considered training on them at one point. That explains why the pitches are in heavy demand from local sports clubs such as Sporting FC, which is exactly the sort of community organisation that is crucial if the Government's out-of-school sport agenda is to be delivered. Its club secretary, John Abbey, has worked tirelessly to oppose Tesco's application.
	A second argument against the proposal is the fact that the overwhelming power of Tesco could wipe out all the local traders in the neighbouring Fox and Goose shopping centre. My inquiries to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister before Christmas uncovered a stunning report. It was unequivocal in saying that such megastores undermine traditional businesses such as food shops, newsagents, off-licences and clothing and footwear stores. Those are exactly the kind of stores that currently make up the Fox and Goose. What chance will such local stores, rich in goodwill, stand against a company that makes nearly £4,000 profit every single minute of every day?
	A further argument against the proposal is its impact on local roads, which are already some of the most dangerous in Birmingham. Communities throughout the country have interesting stories to tell about promises on traffic that are never delivered, but although local councillors in Hodge Hill proposed a neighbourhood renewal fund initiative to study the traffic impact independently, it was stopped by the new Tory-Liberal administration when it froze NRF projects throughout the city.
	Worse still, today a new report on air quality in Birmingham shows that our community is on course to fail targets on nitrogen dioxide levels because of traffic. As Councillor John Clancy, who has ably chaired the local Fox and Goose focus group for several years, rightly says, at a time when we want to cut fumes and protect our green spaces, it is odd that we are trying to suffocate one of our green lungs.
	I know that the Minister has not received a planning application and that he is not in the business of speculating, but I think that this is a clear case of a development that is not in a community's interest, so I want to flag in his mind the fact that there are strong reasons why he should oppose the proposal, if and when he sees it. I know that under new PPG17 guidance, planners must show that land is surplus to requirements, but paragraph 10 of the guidance says that developers must consult the local community and show that
	"their proposals are widely supported by them."
	In Hodge Hill, the city council might be prepared to declare that the fields are surplus to requirement, but the developers certainly cannot show that the plans have widespread support. Council polls show that 55 per cent. of people support the idea, but I dispute that figure because my polls show that 58 per cent. are against it. It would be useful if the Minister would clarify the metrics for community support that must be demonstrated in such cases.
	No Minister in this country is above the law, so if my hon. Friend says that Birmingham city council must decide and he has no power to stop it, I will say that the law is at fault. I would not want him to break it, however, especially so early in his post. However, if that is the scenario, I ask for his help to ensure that the proceeds benefit the local community. The Minister's predecessor told the House on 8 December 2004 that 80 per cent. of playing field sales that did not involve school closures led to the provision of much better local facilities, but that is not Birmingham city council's game plan. I have learned that the sale proceeds from the deal will total between £2 million and £3 million, with section 106 money on top of that, but will that be spent in the locality? Not a bit of it. When Councillor John Clancy put that question to Birmingham city council in the regeneration scrutiny committee last week, the council said that not only would the capital receipts be going elsewhere, but a portion of the section 106 money would be placed
	"into an accrual account and would remain there until called upon"
	to be spent
	"in those areas where there was a shortfall in service provision".
	That is from a council that is sitting on a single capital pot fund of £233 million. That is from a council with a prospective section 106 pot of £70 million, of which £23 million is already in the bank. In other words, that is from a council with zero stars for children's services and a triple A bank balance, and that is why we need the Minister's help.
	Last year, the Minister's predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), helped me with an answer to my questions about any proceeds from the sale of the Brockhurst Road playing fields. He said
	"that any sale proceeds must be used to improve outdoor sports provision wherever possible";
	in other words—I would welcome the Minister's confirmation of my interpretation—100 per cent. of the proceeds must be earmarked for sports provision. His predecessor went on to say that
	"there is no requirement to use the proceeds from the sale of school lands to provide local community facilities."
	I would argue that that is the opportunity for progress tonight.
	I would welcome the Minister's exploring whether he could consider the following simple three-point plan: first, to require, where he sees fit, the local authority and the local police to present their assessment of the adequacy of services for young people in a community before deals such as this are approved; secondly, to acquire the right for the Minister to stipulate where money is spent if it is clear from the assessment that youth services in a community are not up to scratch; thirdly, to update regulations on the sale of playing fields to bring them into line with restrictions on the sale of school-owned playing fields. As the Minister knows, although we have been tremendously successful in reducing the sale of school playing fields, down to just 14 last year, the level of sales of playing fields is still quite high. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport told the House last March that there had been 807. Many of those sales helped to contribute about £200 million to new investment in sport, but many did not.
	I suspect that the Minister can already hear the howls of protest from the Local Government Association, but that is a £15 million lobbying organisation. The people of Hodge Hill have only me to speak on their behalf in this House, and they will not abide a gain drain from our community where deals are done with developers and the money banked away to make good service failure elsewhere.
	I recognise that that is an ambitious agenda, and I do not expect or ask the Minister to give definitive answers tonight, but I would be grateful if he undertook to consult colleagues in the DFES, the Home Office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and come back to the House with a considered view. One opportunity to do so may well arise from the forthcoming youth Green Paper. This morning at half-past 10, the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), underlined the Government's commitment to young people and reminded us that if we talk to any mum or dad, we find that what they say would most improve family life is the provision of places to go and things to do. If we talk to any teenager, we find that they voice the same plea. That is the broader point of principle, which is why I bring the matter to the Floor of the House.
	Sport is not only vital in our war on yobs; it is vital to the future of our young people. Seven million adults and 5 million children play football in our country, but FA research shows that we need £2 billion of investment in grassroots facilities, such as the fields of Brockhurst, just to keep up with the current demand to play the game. If we are to be successful in prosecuting our war on antisocial behaviour, we have got to give young people more to do, and sport is one of the most effective ways known to policy makers of diverting youngsters away from crime.
	Moreover, when I talk to head teachers, and great educationalists such as George McHugh, the outstanding head teacher of Washwood Heath technology college, who I very much hope will serve our community for some years to come, they say to me that sport is vital to the development of our children's characters. Our young people deserve our investment. This is a Government who have made great strides in the last seven years. I urge the Minister to finish the job and, in so doing, to stand on the side of our community in Hodge Hill.

Derek Twigg: I shall speak to my hon. Friend outside later.
	We are often asked why so few applications to dispose of school playing fields are rejected. The answer is that local authorities and schools pursue only those that they consider meet the tight rules that we have put in place. There is no point in their putting forward applications that they know do not meet the criteria. The main point is that the number of applications has declined, not that the number of applications rejected is low. We should not, therefore, read anything into the fact that few applications are rejected.
	In conclusion, a great deal has been done, and continues to be done, to protect school playing fields. We are also investing heavily to support PE and school sport. Between 2003 and 2008, we will have invested more than £1.5 billion to boost PE and school sport. We are promoting a massive expansion of the specialist sports college and school sport partnerships programmes. We aim to have 400 sports colleges or academies with a sports focus by 2006—that is one in nine of our secondary schools. Clustered around each sports college we are establishing a network of school sport partnerships—families of schools that receive additional funding to enhance sports opportunities for all children. More than 50 per cent. of schools in England are already within the network of created partnerships.
	More than 1,700 secondary co-ordinators and 10,300 primary and special school link teachers have been appointed and are in place within the partnerships. They are sharing best practice, organising competitions and activities, and building and strengthening subject leadership, particularly in the primary sector. By 2006, all maintained school in England will be within a school sport partnership.
	PE and sport have an important role to play in raising standards. Work undertaken by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has shown how placing PE and sport at the heart of a broad and balanced curriculum can improve attendance, behaviour and attainment. PE and school sport build self-esteem, teamwork and leadership skills. PE and sport are also important because they can help build an inclusive society, raise levels of participation in sport after pupils leave school and positively affect the health of the nation.
	That is why PE is compulsory within the national curriculum at all key stages for all pupils, and that is why there is a statutory duty on education authorities to provide access to at least a minimum amount of team game playing fields, based on the type of school and the number of pupils. That is also why we put so much emphasis on protecting the playing fields that schools use and re-investing proceeds whenever possible into giving schools first-class sports facilities.
	Our policies not only ensure that schools keep the playing fields they need to meet their own future needs, but the needs of their neighbouring schools. We will continue to work with our partners in the education, voluntary and local government sectors to keep our policies under review to ensure that all pupils have access to the best school sports facilities that schools and authorities can provide.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes to Eight o'clock.